The curing of monomeric materials to produce thermoset resins is well known in the art. In general, the polymerizable monomers have at least one and customarily more than one active group which serves as the reactive site for a curing or crosslinking reaction to produce the thermoset resins which are typically highly crosslinked. The curing or crosslinking of many if not most thermoset resins, for example the curing of epoxy resins, requires the use of a curing agent, whether catalytic or stoichiometric, to cause the crosslinking reaction to proceed at an acceptable rate. Certain other monomers cure in the absence of added curing agent but only upon the application of high intensity energy, e.g., UV light. Even in the presence of most curing agents the rate of curing is unduly slow and the addition of an accelerator is generally required to obtain sufficiently rapid curing.
There are some monomers in which the active sites are such that no added curing agent is required and the monomers cure upon application of heat. Such monomers are termed "self-curing". The self-curing of such monomers results in production of crosslinked resins having good properties of rigidity and strength. Certain of the self-curing monomers are cyclic in character and the cured products which result therefrom are typically characterized by relatively high glass transition temperatures which provide dimensional stability in applications where elevated temperatures are likely to be encountered. It would be of advantage to provide a novel class of self-curing polycyclic monomeric materials which cure on application of heat to provide cured, crosslinked products of high glass transition temperature.